Breathe Into Me
by TreasonousHeir
Summary: A character study, I guess you could call it. Riku POV. Covers time from the end of the first game to the end of the second, but does not include Riku's story in Castle Oblivion. Riku/Sora


I don't usually write fanfiction (I'd rather work on my own fiction, thankyouverymuch) but this idea hit me in the head like a brick. I wanted a little feedback, so I made a one-time account here to see what happened. So yeah. Let me know what you think.

Heavily inspired by and based on DestinyIslandsPro's cosplay video of the same title as this story. I recommend reading this _before_ you watch it because I swear you'll be a lot more open minded about my effort here if you haven't seen the excellence of that video beforehand. (In all honesty the link'd be at the bottom but I don't want to ruin the finish with an A/N)

http:// www. Youtube .com/ watch?v =fc2N6J2aM7A (remove the spaces)

Riku/Sora

* * *

The door slid shut and then it was just me and the King and the darkness. I leaned against the door for a moment, watching the Heartless melt into the darkness because they had nowhere else to go.

"Riku?" asked the King. "Are you okay?"

I looked at him. "Yeah. I'll be fine, Your Majesty. Let's just go."

But it wasn't long until we parted ways.

* * *

I was fine at first. Keeping an eye on Sora and his pals, investigating this "Organization XIII" that had cropped up suddenly… I had plenty to do and relatively unlimited time to do it in.

Then the headaches started.

The darkness was taking its toll on me.

It was days before I realized that something was seriously wrong. Out of nowhere came an intense pressure in my head, so bad that I was temporarily pushed out of rational thought. I did the instinctive thing and ran, as if that could get me away from myself.

* * *

The next time I ran across Sora, I had managed to get my hands on a coat that protected me from the damaging effects of the darkness. There was no time to get out of sight. When I realized he was there, he'd already seen me.

He was behind me. I heard his footsteps halt when he saw me. Obviously he thought I was one of the Organization members because I was wearing one of their coats. With the hood up, I knew it was impossible for him to know it was me. He ran up behind me, keyblade ready, but just as he reached me, I turned and caught the keyblade in mid swing. My hood slipped back off my head as I did so, and I dropped the keyblade beside me, watching Sora's face turn to an expression of shock.

One corner of my mouth turned up sardonically. All I could do was shake my head slightly before turning and running away from him. I could almost truly feel my heart shatter when he shouted my name, taking a few steps across the pavement.

"RIKU!"

…He didn't actually follow me.

I ran blindly at first, as fast as I could. I knew I could outrun Sora, I'd been able to do that since we were still on the island. What I didn't count on was the unevenness of the pavement. My foot caught on a crack and I landed hard on my hands and knees. I closed my eyes, wincing for a moment, but then I quickly got to my feet.

A few minutes later I ran out of breath and will to keep running, so I leaned against a wall and slowly slid down it until I was sitting on the ground. I was so stupid to have run from him, but after all that time in the darkness, there was no way he would accept me again. I'd imagined the desperation in his voice; I must have... There was nothing I wanted more right then than to be with him.

And suddenly yes, there he was, sitting right beside me, and it was a dream come true, he was leaning into me and… Just as our lips were about to touch, he vanished and I realized he had just been a hallucination; yet another effect the darkness occasionally had on me. I looked around for a moment. No sign of anyone, least of all him. I lowered my head and pressed against the pain in my forehead with my fingers, closing my eyes.

* * *

It was a long time before I saw Sora again. In that time I had come to a decision. I wasn't going to run away from him this time. Not again.

I walked straight up to him and he had no choice but to back away. He looked positively frightened as I pushed him right up to the wall and the keyblade fell from his hand. I placed one hand on his arm to hold him there and forcefully kissed him. He stood perfectly still, just letting me kiss him. When he started to slip into the kiss and I felt his mouth move against mine, I realized that I couldn't do it. I couldn't drag him into the darkness with me. I slammed a hand against the wall near his head, pushing myself back. Sora jumped at the sound of my hand hitting the wall, looking at me with an indescribable expression. I pulled away from him and started to back away.

At first he followed me, chasing the kiss. "Riku…" I pushed him away, back into the wall, before walking away. This time he stayed there.

My resolve hadn't been as strong as I thought.

* * *

When I found Kairi in the Castle that Never Was, I didn't want her to see what I had become. Still, I didn't stop her from pushing back the hood of my coat and seeing that I looked like Xehanort's Heartless. What amazed me most was that she didn't really seem all that taken aback by my appearance. She simply accepted it; why, I still don't know.

When we found Sora, I tried to leave before he figured out it was me, but Kairi ruined that plan by running up to me and calling me by name. It hurt to see how shocked Sora was, how stunned he was by my new form.

"I'm no one," I said in Xehanort's voice. "Just a castaway from the darkness."

Sora came up to me at Kairi's bidding, and when he closed his eyes I knew he was seeing me as I was supposed to be. I thought that after seeing the path I left behind for powers of darkness, and after all the terrible things that had happened, Sora would hate me. What I didn't expect was what actually did happen.

When Sora dropped to his knees, nearly in tears and talking about how he had searched for me, it took all my willpower to hide my shock. I could only tell him the truth.

"I didn't want you to find me," I said in my normal speaking voice. When Donald and Goofy figured out that I was the one who had left the clues, I admitted it.

"Sora never did pick the… brightest friends." I almost shook my head when Donald took my self-deprecating comment personally.

"Why didn't you let me know you were okay?" Sora demanded.

"I told you. I didn't want to be found. Not like this…"

Words couldn't describe the feeling that flooded me when Sora said "You're still Riku, no matter what."  
He accepted why I needed the dark powers, something I had barely dared to hope for. He seemed to know that someday I would be back to myself.

But even after DiZ's machine returned me to my normal self (if there could be such a thing as normal) and we were back in Destiny Islands, there was something wrong with me still. The headaches had become increasingly frequent despite being home, becoming almost constant.

Besides that, I just wasn't the same. The time in the form of Xehanort's Heartless… it had changed me in more ways than one. I became withdrawn, ignoring my friends' pleas for me to accompany them places.

Surprisingly, Kairi was the first to give up and stop calling and coming over to try and get me out of the house. Sora, however, was another story.

It seemed he had boundless hope… though I supposed he would have needed it to get through all the things he had seen and endured over the past year and more. Still, I couldn't understand how he could keep at it and keep trying to reach me. Finally one day when he stopped me on the old play island – one of the few places I would still go – I just had to find out why.

"Sora, why do you keep trying? It's not worth it."

"Of course it is, Riku. You're my best friend, remember?"

"I don't know how you can still say that. After all that's happened…" I shook my head.

"_All that's happened_ is even more reason for me to keep trying! After so long wondering what happened to you, you're here again and we're home and we… don't need to worry anymore."

I thought for a moment that there was another level to what he was saying, but I stayed silent. I just shook my head again and started walking away quickly.

I felt his hand close around my wrist before I even knew he had moved. I turned to face him as he dragged me back two steps.

"Why are you running?" he demanded. I turned away and started to walk, but he pulled me again, hard enough that I stopped mere inches from him. He was stronger than I remembered.

His right fist made contact with my shoulder, but not hard, and he flung himself into my arms, gripping my vest and burying his face against my right shoulder. My arm instinctively went around him so he wouldn't fall. His shoulders shook, and I realized that he was crying.

I knelt, following him as his legs crumpled under him until we were kneeling on the grass. "Riku, Riku…" Sora repeated through his tears. I slipped my hand under Sora's chin and pulled him away from me. He looked me in the eye confusedly in the second before I leaned in and kissed him hard.

For the first time in a long time, my head and my heart didn't hurt.


End file.
